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If you make Saddam’s head the price, he has no reason to be deterred.
—Ivo Daalder, of the Brookings Institution, on the possibility that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would employ weapons of mass destruction if the United States attacks Iraq.
Negotiations broke down Friday after two days of talks between U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri...Full Story 
The United States plans to vaccinate 500,000 first responders and health care workers against smallpox, according to a U.S. official cited by the New York Times yesterday (see GSN, June 26)...Full Story
During a recent series of U.S. congressional hearings, several researchers criticized plans for science and technology programs under the proposed homeland security department, Science magazine reported Friday (see GSN, June 26)...Full Story
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During a recent series of U.S. congressional hearings, several researchers criticized plans for science and technology programs under the proposed homeland security department, Science magazine reported Friday (see GSN, June 26).
According to Science, many scientists are against moving bioterrorism research and response programs to the proposed department — particularly programs that are currently run by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I’m skeptical that such an odd coupling will work,” said Tara O’Toole, head of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. “It’s a very tall order to ask a single agency to develop a national security strategy and ... create a sophisticated R&D [research and development] capability.”
Lewis Branscomb of Harvard University criticized a proposal made by Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) to create a multiagency committee to regulate funding for scientific programs conducted by the proposed homeland security department.
“I have never seen an interagency committee in the federal government capable of administering anything,” Branscomb said.
Lieberman has said he is examining altering his proposal in order to create SARPA — a Security Advanced Research Projects Agency that would be based on the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) supports a proposal to join the proposed department’s research programs under a single manager, according to Science (Science, July 5).
The United Kingdom plans to create an independent police force to protect the country’s nuclear facilities, the London Times reported Friday (see GSN, June 6).
The proposed Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which would be responsible for security at seven nuclear sites, would also protect nuclear materials shipped throughout the United Kingdom, according to the Times. The main body of the force would be made up of the British Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary, which was created in 1954 to guard nuclear materials at specific sites, the Times reported. The entire proposed force would consist of about 600 members, many of whom would be armed.
British officials are also considering creating a civilian “home guard” to support the proposed police force, according to the Times. The civilians would search people and vehicles outside important nuclear facilities.
“The purpose would be to free police manpower for more demanding tasks,” says a British report that contains details of the nuclear police force proposal.
Meanwhile, officials at the British Association of Chief Police Officers have not been consulted about the authority of the proposed police force, they said.
“We will have to study the proposals very closely,” an association spokesman said. “But the tendency is for greater collaboration and coordination rather than to set up separate new forces” (Jameson/Bone, London Times, July 5).
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Negotiations broke down Friday after two days of talks between U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri. Meeting in Vienna, the leaders failed to agree on returning U.N. weapons inspectors to the country (see GSN, July 3).
There was progress in the meetings but “not enough, I would have preferred more,” Annan said, adding, “I cannot force a decision.”
Sabri said Iraq is not ready to allow the inspectors to return, officials said. Iraqi officials want assurances that the United States would not attack Iraq if the regime accepts inspectors, according to the Financial Times.
Technical discussions will continue, but no date has been set for a future high-level meeting, Annan said. Iraqi officials will probably try to extend the diplomatic process, barring inspectors until they believe a U.S. attack is imminent, analysts said.
U.S. Official Publicizes Military Plans
A Friday New York Times article describing a U.S. planning document for a striking Iraq “did not help the discussions,” participants in the talks said. Some questioned the timing of the article, which was based on classified information.
Annan said he “would not be surprised” if the article affected the U.N.-Iraqi discussions. Sabri said the report was “rubbish” created by “old colonialists and evil people” (Carola Hoyos, Financial Times, July 6). He added that the article “was not a factor in our discussions” (Associated Press/New York Times, July 6).
According to the New York Times report, the document — called “CentCom Courses of Action” and prepared by Central Command planners — envisions air, land and sea-based forces attacking Iraq from the north, south and west to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, an official familiar with the document said (see GSN, June 19). Under the plan, thousands of U.S. troops would probably invade from Kuwait, hundreds of airplanes based in up to eight countries would attack thousands of targets and special operations forces or CIA operatives would strike suspected WMD sites and Iraqi missiles.
The document is still part of a preliminary planning process, according to the Times. The United States has not formally discussed the plan with any of the countries listed as potential staging points, officials said. Neither Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, head of Central Command Gen. Tommy Franks nor the Joint Chiefs of Staff have received a briefing on the plan, officials said. Any U.S. military strike against Iraq would probably not begin until early next year, senior Bush administration officials have said.
The document does indicate, however, that the outlined plan is moving through military channels, according to the Times.
“Right now, we’re at the stage of conceptual thinking and brainstorming,” a senior defense official said. “We’re pretty far along.”
Scant Attention to WMD
The plan provides only some discussion of the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the Times. It mentions the broad threat from the weapons and the need to deter or counter them. It does not include precise missions for special operations forces or the possibility of urban warfare in Baghdad and the risk that Iraq might use chemical weapons in such a scenario (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, July 5).
Improving Strikes on Mobile Scuds
As planning for a potential strike against Iraq continues, senior defense officials have said that the U.S. military has greatly improved its ability to find and destroy mobile Scud missiles, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, May 20). The missiles could carry chemical or biological weapons, analysts said. If the United States attacked Iraq with the intention of removing Hussein from power, he would be more likely to use those weapons, according to analysts.
“If you make Saddam’s head the price, he has no reason to be deterred,” said Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council official and an analyst at the Brookings Institution. “All he needs is one chemical or biological warhead to get anywhere in Israel, and the likelihood is Israel would strike back. In that sense, the Scud game becomes even more important.”
U.S. military capabilities are better than they were during the 1991 Gulf War, said Eliot Cohen, an analyst at Johns Hopkins University.
“The Iraqis haven’t been able to test-fire a Scud missile since the Gulf War,” he said. “We’ve had 10 years to think very hard about this. I think they would be under some real stress, and it would be very difficult to fire those things with any kind of accuracy.”
U.S. laser-guided bombs and targeting devices have improved since the Gulf War, and the Pentagon now has new satellite-guided smart bombs that work in all types of weather, according to the Post. Over the last decade, the United States has developed the Predator and Global Hawk — new unmanned reconnaissance airplanes that provide sustained views of territories (see GSN, March 11).
Communications capabilities have also improved. Commanders can now receive data from reconnaissance planes and analyze and relay the data to airplanes in minutes — often fast enough to strike a mobile Scud as it comes out of hiding, officials said. A new communications system also allows F-15E fighters to receive targeting information directly from the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, a senior Air Force official said.
The most important improvement, according to Air Force officials, is the extensive use of special operations forces to designate targets on the ground. The forces were deployed in Afghanistan at the beginning of the campaign.
“Scud hunting — clearly that has the potential in certain theaters to be a very high-priority mission,” the senior Air Force official said. “But that’s not all. Mobile targets — whether it’s a Scud or an artillery piece or a tank battalion — are key challenges. This has been an area of extraordinary emphasis since Desert Storm, but even more so since Sept. 11.”
Navy and Air Force officials also said, however, that bombing Iraqi mobile Scuds would be more difficult than bombing Taliban troops and vehicles in Afghanistan.
“We’re working hard not to create a false sense of accomplishment,” a senior Navy official said.
The “miniaturization of technology” has allowed some U.S. rivals to put chemical and biological munitions on smaller weapons, the official said, adding, “As we get better, the problem gets harder” (Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, July 5).
Kurds Wary of U.S. Offensive
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have talked this year with Kurdish leaders from northern Iraq about participation in a possible attempt to overthrow Hussein, but the Kurds have said they fear U.S. abandonment and Hussein’s wrath, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Feb. 12).
The issue even brought rivals Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriot Union of Kurdistan, together to meet with U.S. officials this spring. Both leaders have said they will place Kurdish interests over U.S. priorities.
Kurdish leaders told the New York Times last week that they would oppose U.S. actions to overthrow Hussein unless the United States provides “guarantees” to the Kurds in advance, including promises that a future Iraqi government would be democratic with a federal structure that would allow for broad Kurdish autonomy in the north (see GSN, March 20).
“We are not ready to take any risks, and if we are not sure of the outcome of any step, then we are not ready to take that step, because we are not sure of improving our circumstances,” Barzani said.
The leaders said the United States has betrayed Kurds in the past, such as encouraging them to oppose Hussein in 1991 and then refusing to send U.S. military support when Iraqi forces cracked down and killed thousands of Kurds.
One Kurdish official also said that the Kurds do not want to draw Hussein’s attention and are trying to signal that the United States — not the Kurds — is his adversary.
“Saddam is our shadow,” the official said. “He’s always there, right behind us, and we don’t want him to think that we’re drawing the Americans in to overthrow him” (John Burns, New York Times, July 8).
U.K. to Join U.S.
The United Kingdom is preparing to provide at least 30,000 troops to join a U.S. invasion of Iraq early next spring, the London Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday (see GSN, March 11). The number of British troops in Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Sierra Leone has been reduced in preparation for an attack against Iraq.
“Justifying any attack would not be a problem because the evidence exists that he [Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction. It will not be made public yet because it would compromise the means by which it was acquired,” a British Defense Ministry official said (Sean Rayment, London Sunday Telegraph, July 7).
Iraqi Newspaper Criticizes Annan
Meanwhile, the Iraqi newspaper Babel, run by Hussein’s son Uday Hussein, criticized Annan today.
“The irresponsible attitude of the United Nations was deliberately aimed at moving the situation in favor of the wish and desires of the United States,” the paper said.
Annan wanted to discuss only returning weapons inspectors to Iraq, but Iraq “will clearly stick to a lifting of the embargo while encouraging the secretary general to adopt a more frank and courageous policy,” the paper said (Agence France-Presse, July 8).
For further information, see:
UNMOVIC
U.N. Office of the Iraq Program
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The United States and North Korea are considering resuming high-level talks on July 31 during a Brunei meeting for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to Brunei foreign affairs officials. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun are scheduled to attend the forum.
The United States last week withdrew an offer for July 10 meetings partly due to a brief naval battle between North Korea and South Korea (see GSN, July 3). Powell said today that the clash had been a “deliberate provocation” by North Korea.
Brunei foreign affairs officials said there are indications from both countries that a U.S.-North Korean meeting is still important and that the regional forum would be “a convenient time to hold such talks,” the Borneo Bulletin reported Friday, according to Agence France-Presse. The Foreign Affairs Ministry, however, said it had not received any official notice that talks would occur during the forum.
North Korea might also use the forum to hold talks with Japanese and South Korean officials, diplomatic sources said. North Korea said Thursday that it would continue to pursue dialogue with South Korea, despite the naval clash.
The ASEAN Regional Forum, the main security umbrella body for the Asia-Pacific region, includes 22 countries and the European Union, according to Agence France-Presse (Bandar Seri Begawan, Agence France-Presse, July 5).
Ukraine has dismantled the last of its former Soviet SS-24 ICBMs, ITAR-Tass reported last week (see GSN, Dec. 5, 2001). The solid fuel from the missiles has been taken to a chemical plant near Pavlohrad for disposal, which is expected to be completed by 2007 (ITAR-Tass, July 3 in FBIS-SOV, July 3).
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The United States plans to vaccinate 500,000 first responders and health care workers against smallpox, according to a U.S. official cited by the New York Times yesterday (see GSN, June 26). Previously, officials had said they planned to vaccinate only a few thousand.
Rapid increases in supplies of smallpox vaccine have made it possible to boost the number of people vaccinated, officials said (see GSN, May 16). Studies have also discovered that the vaccine can be diluted several times and still remain effective, according to the Times.
“Now we can act differently because we have more vaccine,” said D.A. Henderson, senior science adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson (William Broad, New York Times, July 7).
U.S. officials are still exploring the best strategy for carrying out the vaccination program, according to the Washington Post. Each vial of smallpox vaccine contains 100 doses, which can be diluted five times (see GSN, March 29). That means, however, that 500 people would have to be given the vaccine at once since it loses effectiveness when opened, the Post reported.
Most health care workers would have to be taught how to administer the vaccine, which requires about 15 quick injections to the arm. To prevent infecting patients with live vaccine, health care workers would have to leave work for 10 days after they are vaccinated, said Jerome Hauer, acting assistant Health and Human Services secretary for emergency preparedness. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will monitor all vaccine recipients for adverse reactions, Hauer said.
Because the vaccine can be harmful to immunocompromised people, Health and Human Services is examining the possibility of requiring an HIV test before administering the vaccine, according to the Post (Ceci Connolly, Washington Post, July 8). The United States is also attempting to increase supplies of vaccinia immune globulin, which is used to reduce adverse vaccine effects in people with immune system problems, according to the New York Times (see GSN, Nov. 21, 2001). Currently, 700 doses are available and 3,000 doses are expected to be on hand by the end of the year, officials said.
Strategies
The United States also plans to increase preparations for a possible mass vaccination strategy if needed, according to the Times (see GSN, June 21). Health and Human Services is expected to distribute guidelines on conducting mass vaccinations to cities and states within the next two weeks, Hauer said. There are also logistical changes planned at CDC for conducting a mass vaccination campaign, he added. Other details of a mass vaccination strategy still need to be approved by Thompson, officials said.
The United States has not given up on its plans to conduct a ring vaccination strategy — vaccinating those who came into contact with an infected person, health officials said. Preparations for mass vaccination, however, will enable workers to respond more quickly to an outbreak that infects more than 100 people, officials said.
Critics of the ring vaccination approach have said the plan would do little against terrorists set on conducting a smallpox attack.
“Unless the initial attack is very small and the infectiousness of the agent is quite mild, ring vaccination is not going to do much good,” said Edward Kaplan, a Yale University public health specialist (Broad, New York Times).
A new study prepared by Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says that a mass vaccination strategy would be a better response to a smallpox attack, according to Wall Street Journal. The study, expected to be released tomorrow, says that 4,000 people would die if a ring vaccination plan were used after a smallpox outbreak in a major U.S. city. The United States’ dense and mobile population would result in a larger outbreak that would cause fear and take too long to bring under control without a mass vaccination plan, according to the study (Lueck/Chase, Wall Street Journal, July 8).
The increase in criticism of the ring vaccination strategy has had no role in the increased preparations for carrying out a mass vaccination plan, U.S. officials said.
“The key to responding to any public health emergency is flexibility,” Hauer said. “You listen to critics, but you can’t let that drive policy. You have to do what’s best for public health and national security” (Broad, New York Times).
Israel Stockpiles Vaccine
Meanwhile, Israel has begun building a smallpox vaccine stockpile to prepare for a possible biological weapons attack, Clalit Health Services Chairman Dan Michaeli said today.
“I know that decisions have been taken that have led to provisions for all the residents of the country,” said Michaeli, a former director general of the Israeli Health Ministry. “If and when it is decided to vaccinate, I hope they will do so quickly” (Ha’aretz, July 8).
For further information, see:
CDC Smallpox Information
Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Smallpox
Several FBI agents increasingly believe that the person responsible for last fall’s anthrax attacks will be found among the small number of scientists who worked in the U.S. biological weapons research program, Newsweek reported this week (see GSN, June 28).
The FBI is working from a shifting list of six to 20 people under investigation, according to Newsweek. Each name remains on the list until the person can be cleared in a process called Operation Elimination, Newsweek reported.
Investigators recently searched the apartment of Steven Hatfill, a former researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Hatfill has strongly denied any role in the attacks and the search produced no evidence linking him, authorities have said. Some FBI agents want to increase the pressure on Hatfill, while others are advocating a more cautious approach, according to Newsweek.
“I don’t want it coming to us that we created a (Richard) Jewell,” a senior law-enforcement official said, referring to the man once suspected, but later exonerated, of being responsible for the bombing at the Atlantic Olympics (Newsweek, July 15).
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By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Representatives from 100 countries met in Madrid last month to continue work on an international code of conduct intended to halt proliferation of ballistic missiles, sources recently told Global Security Newswire (see GSN, Feb. 15).
The June 17-19 meeting followed a February conference in Paris during which delegates approved a draft of the code. More countries attended the meeting in Madrid than the Paris conference, which might indicate growing support, said Alex Wagner, an analyst with the Arms Control Association.
“Maybe the Paris meeting created a buzz that would make it more appealing,” he said.
North Korea and Syria — two countries with ballistic missile programs that have raised concerns — did not attend the Madrid meeting, according to Wagner. Iran, which has also raised missile proliferation concerns and has previously played an active role in developing the code, also did not attend the meeting, Wagner said. Tehran had previously indicated it would attend the meeting until about a week before it was scheduled to begin, he added.
At the Paris conference, more than 80 countries had agreed to a draft code, a political agreement that calls on signatories to declare their ballistic missile programs once a year and to alert other signatories before conducting any missile tests. At the end of the conference, France agreed to revise the text of the code based on suggestions made during the meeting and transmit the revised text to Spain, who was to take over the EU presidency, Wagner said.
The European Union, now headed by Denmark, will be responsible for deciding what will be done next on the code of conduct, said Vann Van Diepen, acting deputy assistant U.S. secretary of state for nonproliferation. The EU’s options on the code are “open-ended,” he added. There is general consensus among the countries involved in the discussions that the code will be unveiled during a ceremony at The Hague before the end of the year, Wagner said.
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The head of Russia’s main nuclear weapons laboratory has said the United States and Russia should consider jointly developing nuclear warhead-tipped missile interceptors as a component of a missile defense system, Defense Week reported today (see GSN, June 28).
Yevgeny Velikhov, director of the Russian Research Center Kurchatov Institute, pitched the idea of developing low-yield nuclear warheads for use on missile interceptors to a visiting delegation of 13 U.S. lawmakers this spring, according to a congressional aide. While U.S. and Russian Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin have discussed cooperation on a missile defense system, they have never publicly considered using nuclear-armed interceptors, according to Defense Week.
William Schneider, head of the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Science Board, previously has said that U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is interested in using nuclear-armed interceptors, according to Defense Week. A report accompanying the fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives encouraged the Pentagon to investigate the idea. The U.S. Senate, however, passed legislation banning funds for nuclear-armed missile interceptors (John Donnelly, Defense Week, July 8).
The United States plans to request the use of British naval warships to develop a U.S. missile defense system that could also be used to defend the United Kingdom, the London Sunday Times reported yesterday (see GSN, July 1).
Top U.S. Defense Department officials are expected to travel to London later this month to request British cooperation in constructing a missile defense system, the Times reported. The proposed system would employ new destroyers currently under construction as early warning ships that could also be armed with missile interceptors, according to the Times (see GSN, June 19).
The United Kingdom’s new Type 45 destroyers, which are expected to be operational in five years, could be used to track incoming ballistic missiles and possibly to destroy them, according to British Defense Ministry officials.
“The Type 45 and its radar system can be developed to play a part (in missile defense),” said Ralph Dunn, spokesman for the British Defense Procurement Agency. “The missile we have is designed to shoot down low- and medium-level incoming missiles, but an anti-tactical ballistic missile could be added.”
British officials are still waiting for a formal U.S. request for the use of the destroyers and for notification that the United Kingdom would be protected by the system, according to the Times. A spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party has said the British government is hiding its involvement in the U.S. missile defense program.
“It is time for the defense secretary or even the prime minister to make a statement to Parliament about the government’s missile defense policy and why they are hiding it from the public and their own party,” said Conservative Defense spokesman Bernard Jenkin (Nicholas Rufford, London Sunday Times, July 7).
Russia and Ukraine
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine might also help the United States develop a missile defense system, said Russian Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, senior chair for the center for the problems of strategic nuclear forces (see GSN, July 2). One example of possible cooperation between the three nations is the use of the Russian-Ukrainian-developed Dnepr rocket to install a system of satellite sensors in space, he said.
“Cooperation is needed for eliminating the uncertainty,” Dvorkin said. “We have to cooperate to prevent another round of confrontation” (Vesti RTR/Defense and Security, July 3).
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2002 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by the National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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